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For the past several years, the folks at Morgan Stanley have surveyed Americans about their desire to "cut the cord" -- that is, to cancel their cable or satellite TV subscription once and for all. And every year, many of you promise that this time, you really mean it. In 2013, 8% said "definitely" while 9% said "probably" on the survey. With 94 million pay-TV households in the country and 17% expressing such firm intent then, you'd expect that millions would have gone through with it, right? Not so fast. According to the Leichtman Research Group, the total subscriber losses for the industry last year were 104,521 -- about 0.1% of customers.

And it's not like last year was an outlier. In 2012, the cable and satellite industry actually gained 175,000 subscribers, making the two-year total a net positive rather than a negative. (And with respect to households, because demographics shift along with the economy, the total number according to Nielsen is flat over the two-year period. That means net cord cutting over the period is actually negative.) Given we've been hearing about this phenomenon for years -- and there's a good chance you know someone who has actually canceled their TV subscription -- it's perhaps a bit strange that overall, cord cutting is a "myth," as Chris O'Brien of the Los Angeles Times noted on Twitter.

Two things worthy of mention do continue to happen. First, the cable companies are still slowly bleeding customers to their competition. Of the 1.7 million people that dumped cable TV last year, about 1 in 10 signed up for satellite with DirecTV. The rest picked AT&T's U-Verse or Verizon's Fios, which have become the third and fourth largest TV providers in the country. Cable itself is down to 52% of the video market and seems likely to fall below 50% this year if trends continue as it held 58% in 2012.

The second important trend is that the cable companies are gaining broadband customers faster than they are losing video subscribers. Comcast picked up 1.3 million internet subscribers even as it lost 300,000 in TV. Time Warner had a terrible year on the video side, shedding 825,000 as it suffered from the CBS blackout for an extended period. But it too gained on the data side, grabbing 200,000 video customers. Those two are trying to merge, of course. Whether their combination of failure and success helps or hurts their case before regulators ultimately remains a wildcard. Because they currently don't compete, it's likely that concerns over cable's growing dominance in broadband (where it currently has a 58% share that's growing) will play a bigger role in the mind of watchdogs.

In the meantime, more of you than ever are promising to dump cable or satellite this year. The "definitely" group is up to 10%, while the "probably" camp has reached 11%. That's very close to 20 million overall. If history is a guide, almost none of you will follow through on the threat.